Nov. 5, 2014: Act to defeat the money monster in politics, end the perpetual political war, and fix a failed Congress in Washington. Click on label "A. Current status" to right.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Why Gary Palmer will be ineffective

As Dale Jackson said to me repeatedly, "Congress is broke, and everyone agrees Congress is broke."

Dale didn't exactly define "broke."

In my campaign, I assiduously tried to get at the "brokeness" of Congress.

I asked Senators Shelby and Sessions and Representative Bachus to help the 6th Congressional district candidates and voters about whether Congress was "broke" or not (my own terminology the past five months has been variously Congress is "dysfunctional," "failed," "kaput," "incapacitated" and "sucky"). See Open letter to Alabama delegation in Washington. Senators Shelby and Sessions and Representative Bachus were either non-repsonsive, or they ignored me.

At the Channel 13 televised debate in March, I tried to get the panelists and the audience merely to look back over the past 20 years of Congressional performance, with a view of their trying to reach their own evaluation of that performance.

I literally tried to put questions in the mouths of the panelists (see Questions panelists should ask). In my closing statement at the debate, I asked the audience to go home and take out a pencil and paper and put on one side instances in the past 20 years when they thought Congress did properly do its job for the American people, and, on the other side, instances of failure (including inaction) to do its job for the American people, and to reach an overall conclusion.

Throughout the campaign all of the other candidates steadfastly refused to state what their evaluation was, one way or the other, about whether Congress was "broke."

Further I gave my diagnosis of why Congress was kaput and unable to do its job for the American people.

Given the avoidance of this matter by the other candidates, and their not saying one way or the other about the "brokeness" of Congress, none of them said anything about my diagnosis, or offered their diagnosis, of why we have a failed Congress (assuming they agreed with me that we have a failed Congress).

If Congress has been a failed institution in recent years, what on Earth makes anyone think it is going to be other than a failed institution for the next two years or next four years?

[Edit 7/16/14. In my entry Framing the question, I refer to the possibility of the Republicans winning the Senate in the 2014 elections. I believe a significant part of our kaput Congress is "obstructionism" on the part of a current "weaker" side, which is met with extreme tactics of the other side to overcome the "obstructionism" (e.g., The Affordable Care Act, with Republican "obstructionism" being overcome by the Democrats by resort to use of "reconciliation" to get passage). If Republicans win the Senate, Democratic "obstructionism" will likely be shifted to use of the Presidential veto. If Gary Palmer can be gotten to talk about the subject, what would he say? Would he say, "failed Congress now, failed Congress will continue if Republicans don't win Senate, failed Congress will stop being failed if Republicans win Senate?" I don't think you can get Gary Palmer to say anything about this subject, further showing why Gary Palmer will be ineffective.]

If Congress continues as a failed institution, all in Congress are part of that failure, and all should be considered ineffective.